The morning felt... almost normal.
Warm light. Soft breeze.
The world doing a good job pretending it had nothing to hide.
Hale barely said a word as he tied his shoes.
Ivy hummed by the door, swinging her backpack back and forth like a pendulum.
"Ready?" she chirped, bright as sunrise.
He gave a single nod, half-lost in his head.
They stepped onto the porch
into a world that looked the same.
Felt the same.
Almost.
They walked side by side, down the cracked sidewalks they'd traveled a hundred times before.
Same crooked mailbox.
Same leaning coffee shop sign, buzzing out COF_FEE in half-dead neon.
Nothing screamed wrong.
But the mark beneath Hale's skin itched.
Slow. Persistent.
Like a secret trying to reach the surface.
Halfway down the block, Ivy glanced sideways at him.
Her hair caught the morning light gold and just a little off.
"Hey," she said, voice light, almost sing-song.
"I know another way to school. Wanna try it?"
Hale hesitated.
Just for a breath.
Then he smirked.
Tired of fear.
Tired of silence.
Tired of pretending any choice actually mattered.
"Why not?"
Tick.
Tick.
(Somewhere deep inside, the clock slipped.)
They turned left
down a narrow side street Hale didn't remember ever seeing.
The houses thinned out fast.
Trees leaned in from both sides, their branches curling like arms trying to pull them back.
The sky dimmed not from clouds, not from weather.
Just... less light, like the sun was retreating quietly.
Still, Ivy walked ahead.
Still smiling.
Still certain.
She pointed forward.
"There's a big oak tree at the corner. We just cut through there."
But when Hale squinted, he saw three trees.
None of them oaks.
All of them wrong.
The farther they walked, the less the world made sense.
The sidewalk rippled under their feet.
The houses blurred at the edges, sagging like melting candles.
The power lines sagged lower and lower above them, heavy with something they couldn't see.
No cars.
No people.
No sound except their own breathing.
Even that felt... muted.
"Almost there!" Ivy called out.
Her voice was too bright.
Too sharp.
And her words...
they echoed wrong.
Like they bounced off walls that weren't actually there.
Hale slowed down.
The pressure in his chest tightened.
His mark pulsed, soft but warning.
He looked at her again.
Her shoes didn't make a sound anymore.
Her shadow lagged half a step behind her body.
And when she turned to smile
just for a second
her face glitched.
Like a wrong frame in a film reel.
He looked away quickly.
And that's when he noticed the street signs.
No actual words.
Just smudged letters that slithered whenever he tried to focus.
One spinning sign almost made sense:
YO_ SHO_LD'T B HER_.
Another one, hanging loose by a rusted nail, barely clinging:
TH_S I_ NOT YOUR W_RLD.
He blinked.
The signs were gone.
Only empty sidewalk ahead, stretching into blank concrete and fading light.
He stopped walking.
His sneakers scraped the cracked street
but the sound came a second too late.
Ivy kept walking.
A few more steps.
Still smiling.
Then she turned, realizing he wasn't behind her.
Her hair floated just a little too slow.
"You tired?" she asked sweetly.
"It's just a little farther."
Her voice... fractured at the edges.
Like a reflection over water that won't stay still.
Hale didn't answer.
Couldn't.
He turned his head, slowly.
The houses?
Gone.
Only pale emptiness remained.
The sidewalk?
Just cracks.
Veins across a dead landscape.
And the sky
it wasn't blue.
It wasn't gray.
It wasn't anything.
Just blank.—void
Like someone scraped out the color and left paper behind.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Inside his skull.
He checked the cracked watch on his wrist.
3:12.
Still.
He looked back at Ivy
and for just a second, he saw her.
A second Ivy.
Standing directly behind the first.
Same clothes. Same hair.
But no smile.
Empty eyes.
Just watching.
Waiting.
Then the first Ivy blinked—
and the second one vanished like smoke at the edge of a dying breath.
Hale whispered:
"Where the hell did you take me...?"
Ivy tilted her head.
Sunlight hit her hair too bright, too wrong.
Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.
Above them
the sky cracked.
A single fracture across a world stretched too thin.
And somewhere behind them
far back, but getting closer
something started walking.
Not running.
Not rushing.
Just walking.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Certain.